The Hindu Business Line : Guntur farmers keen to continue growing cotton

WHETHER their produce is supported by the market the way they wanted it to be priced or not, Guntur farmers will continue raising cotton as they are habituated to cultivating commercial crops for number of years and it will be difficult to migrate to other crops.

Another strong reason for these farmers to stay put with cotton in the coming years is the assured yield the Bt cotton has brought to them of late.

"Thanks to Bt cotton, cotton farmers in our region are assured of yield, though not on the prices. Last year and this year, the kappas prices kept ruling lower at Rs 1,850-1,900 a quintal as against the 2003-04 season's price of Rs 2,400. But the higher yield we obtained has given us some consolation," said Mr Mekala Lakshminarayana, a cotton farmer from Guntur and president of the local farmers association.

Content with higher yield: With larger areas of cotton there being covered under the Bt strain, the average yield at around 10 quintals made by them is a matter of content, feels Mr Tirupataiya from Kopparru village near Guntur who has cultivated Bunny Bt cotton besides the hybrids Brahma and RH8 in about 70 acres this time.

Mr Lakshminarayana and Mr Tirupataiya are among the team of 15 farmers who are on a conducted tour to the South India Cotton Association's (SICA) demonstration farm on extra long staple (ELS) cotton here.

Whitefly attack: The bulk of Bt seeds the Guntur farmers used in their fields would not have been officially certified but these farmers are confident on the yield. According to Mr Tirupataiya, almost they got 95 per cent germination out of these seeds. He managed to get a yield ranging between 10 and 14 quintals.

"On seeing the SICA demonstration farm, we are interested in going back to ELS cotton which we gave up after our bitter experience in the 1980s due to the huge damages caused to our ELS cotton (DCH-32, MCU-5 and Varalaxmi) by outbreak of whiteflies."

The Guntur farmers say the yield dropped to 2 to 3 quintals in crops suffered by whitefly attack then.

ELS offers higher price: Guntur farmers desire to go back to ELS is partly propelled by the higher farm-gate prices the ELS variety would fetch them - as against Rs 2,000, the ELS kappas will give them Rs 4,000 plus depending on the quality.

Guntur farmers' commercial crops include chilli, coriander and turmeric besides cotton and the major agribusiness firms such as the ITC and AVT, which entered into Guntur market to buy these crops at premium, have given a boost to these farmers' hopes on commercial varieties.

"We look at positively the promotion for the ELS cotton in Guntur but the price that would be offered to us by the corporates would be a determinant factor. We need to be supported with a minimum assured price for the ELS cotton as we get for other commercial crops such as chilli. The corporates offer us premium prices for the chilli we raise," said Mr Lakshminarayana.

Seeks corporate support: The Guntur farmers feel that unlike the case of medium/short staple varieties, the ELS cotton needs more tending and proper picking to avoid economic losses. This would be a crucial factor considering the vast track of cotton acreage available there, said Mr Mendu Sreenivasulu, an executive of the agriculture business service of BASIX, the Hybderabad-based company which is involved in extending farm services.

The total cotton tract in Guntur is around 1.90 lakh hectares.

Guntur farmers want the Coimbatore-based textile company Super Spinning Mills Ltd, which is involved in organising contract cotton farming to arrange a demo cotton farming in Guntur on ELS, to re-expose the region's farmers in ELS cotton cultivation. Super Spinning is promoting its in-house ELS hybrid cotton Sara-II in a big way. The company is also toying with the idea of setting up a pilot project for Sara-II in Guntur this year.

According to Mr Soundararajan, President of the SICA, the visit of the Guntur farmers to Coimbatore is part of SICA's exercise of interacting with cotton farmers to create awareness on bridging the demand-supply gap in the ELS cotton.

The mills in the South are keen to increase the ELS cotton area with a view to bring down the raw material costs.